Paul Barker and Al Jourgensen make a Ministry Sandwich for MK Magazine’s Gail Worley
Walking into the dimly-lit lobby of the W Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as the sun sets on a rainy Monday, is about as disorienting an experience as walking into the Stanley Kubrick film, Eyes Wide Shut, just after the orgy scene: basically, you have no idea what the hell is going on. A seemingly endless number of mirrored hallways sprout off the main lobby like the tentacles of a huge, chrome plated squid, and after wandering the maze for several confusing minutes, I somehow wind up in the bar, where a representative of Sanctuary Records recognizes me and brings me over to the two men I am there to meet: Ministry’s Al Jourgenson and Paul Barker. I have met Paul Barker before, when I interviewed him in April of 1999 for the Dark Side of the Spoon album. Barker is everything I remember him to be; Very tall, handsome, charming, professional and charismatic. But Jourgenson, who bowed out of our previous interview due to physical ailments associated with a recently abandoned “habit” (which we will not speak of here) takes me by surprise. Lucid and bubbling with excitement, Jourgenson is disarmingly friendly, animated and clear eyed (this is actually the first time I have even seen his eyes, as they are almost always masked by dark shades). Paul makes reference to Jourgenson as “the new improved Al.”
In many ways, these two men could not be more different, but as Ministry, they share a musical alchemy that cannot be denied. Without their far reaching influence, guys like Trent Reznor and Rob Zombie would surely be doing something else for a living these days.
Paul and Al are in New York to promote the upcoming release of their latest record, Animositisomina. Said aloud, the title sounds like some kind of latin prayer or incantation, but it is in fact a palindrome — a word that reads the same backwards as forwards. As cryptic as the written word looks, Animositisomina is simply the word “Animosity” with the final “y” removed. It is a very Ministry title. The recording of Animositisomina was completed in under five months, quite a feat considering it’s been known to take over two years to complete a Ministry album. “Actually it only took about two days to record and the rest of the time we just partied,”
Barker jokes. “It’s by far the fastest record we’ve ever made.” Both Paul and Al laugh uproariously at this statement, but when pressed for an answer, Jourgenson gives it up. “What was different? Well, try going out in the middle of the fucking desert with nothing but coyotes and cactus for friends, and no town anywhere in site. I mean, the beer depot, where people drink out of troughs, was the town bar. [The studio] was in Torneo, Texas, 40 miles from the Mexican border. In the middle of the fucking desert.” Paul has one small correction, “[The studio was] 40 miles from El Paso and, like, a quarter of a mile from the Rio Grande river, which is the border to Mexico.”
How and why, exactly, the band chose to record in such a remote location all falls in line with the desire for isolation. Al laughs, “It was good [because] there were no distractions... except for the border patrol coming to pick up and sweep for illegal aliens through the pecan orchard that we had there. Other than that, there were no distractions... maybe two or three rounds of a 9MM going off every night to scare people away from the main compound, if they’d just crossed the border. There’s no cell phone service, there’s nothing there, man. But they had a maid and a cook and everything was taken care of for you, so all you had to do was worry about what you were doing, which was kind of nice.” All the comforts of home, with none of the distractions.
In order to capture their voices on my tape recorder above the din of the very fine rock mix tape blaring at near-deafening levels, I suggest that I take a seat between Al and Paul and hold the recorder, rather than setting in on the table in front of us. Both agree that this is a great idea, and Paul refers to our seating arrangement as a “Ministry Sandwich.” I’m just going to let that one sit there.
In the following in-depth interview, Paul and Al discussed the making of Animositisomina, Real Life Spinal Tap moments, the band’s appearance in the Steven Spielberg film, AI, and things that piss them off, in general.
GAIL: Did you have all the songs written when you went into the studio to record Animositisomina, or did you also do some spontaneous writing?
AL: Ask Paul (laughs).
PAUL: About half and half, actually, we worked on a bunch of ideas at my place [in Austin] and then took those to Torneo, to the studio there and fucked with them.
AL: Fucked with them hard.
PAUL: And I have to tell you that you’re the last interview today, so we’re kind of interview-burnt, right now. We’re going to come up with new stuff to tell you. (He and Al laugh).
GAIL: What inspired the name of the record? What’s with all this Animosity in the Ministry camp?
AL: Oh, well that’s easy, we’ll show you the cover art work ...
PAUL: We will? Do you have it?
AL: Yeah, yeah, I brought it. Why? Well, let’s see, Serbs, Croats, Muslims... Jews, Arabs, Christians...I mean “Where’s the love people?” Anyway, wasn’t there some incident here with some towers coming down and shit?
GAIL: I recall that, yes.
AL: Yeah, exactly. Well, there’s a lot of animosity going around. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, it’s not real cerebral or anything. It’s pretty straight forward.
PAUL: Unlike any of our previous work, this one...you know, we want to kind of poke fun at the (laughs)...
AL: Notice he’s rubbing his chin...something really clever’s about to come out...(laughs)
PAUL: (Laughing) Anyway, unlike those previous records, we decided that we wanted to poke fun at the society we live in. (Pause, laughs).
AL: Unlike the other records...(laughs)
GAIL: Which were just basically meaningless pop records...
PAUL: Yeah, right exactly.
GAIL: To someone who hasn’t heard the CD yet, how would you describe the mood or themes of the songs?
PAUL: Hear that music? (Referring to the “chill mix” pumping through the bar’s sound system). That’s...nice...yeah, alright! (Laughs)
GAIL: And we’re Chillin’ with Ministry...Al, field this question for me, baby.
AL: What was the question? (Paul reads the question aloud to Al from my list of questions). Well, it’s something we had never done before, we were really pissed off. (Paul laughs uproariously).
GAIL: I have a feeling this question will get answered as we move along. Okay, Al, you once said, “I use what it takes to get the atmosphere I want on a song.” How do you know what it’s going to take?
AL: Oh, well, when you get there, you know. I don’t mean to be difficult, but it’s true. When you get there, you know. I’ll elaborate okay? I’ll expound upon that later.
GAIL: You’ve always had a policy of not explaining the lyrics to your songs, yet this is the first Ministry album that comes with lyrics printed in the liner notes. Why the decision to do that?
AL: Because we have stock in magnifying glass companies (Paul laughs) and - no, seriously, good luck trying to read them — but this is a compromise, a compromise situation. This record...why we have lyrics..because they’re good lyrics. I like the lyrics on this record, and I haven’t always been satisfied before.
GAIL: Another thing is, and Alex actually pointed this out to me, this is the first record where you can actually understand what you’re saying.
AL: Oh, yeah, yeah! This is a whole newfound upcoming tradition for us, (laughs) where the singer is actually singing and stuff and...at Paul’s prodding. I mean, basically, I was threatened. [It was a] “sing or die” kind of thing.
PAUL: Yeah, that’s true. That’s all true.
GAIL: Well, Paul is a pretty intimidating presence
PAUL: Yeah, there you go. (To Al) Did you answer the question about why the lyrics are going to be printed on the record? I’ll tell you why. Because no one’s going to make heads or tails out of them anyway, so, why not?
GAIL: I guess you want people to be able to sing along. Ministry Karaoke!
PAUL: (Laughing) Exactly!
AL: Around the campfire with Ministry!
PAUL: Did you hear about the Nazi experiment that went awry? It’s a campfire joke. You know, when you’re at summer camp or something that would scare the shit out of you, that sort of thing.
GAIL: Like the escaped serial killer on the loose who’s only got one arm or whatever?
AL: YEAH!
PAUL: Exactly, he comes and he carries an axe with his other arm and he’s looking for somebody to...yeah!
AL: “Where’s my golden arm?” (general pandemonium breaks out as we all distract ourselves from the interview by discussing campfire folklore for several minutes)
GAIL: Not that you’re at all concerned with genre classifications, but this record sounds like a metal record to me. Do you think this record fits in with the current genre of aggressive “Nu Metal” that’s so popular?
AL: We don’t give a shit about that.
PAUL: We don’t know.
AL: It’s out of our hands. Once the tape leaves our hands it’s anybody’s guess. We don’t care.
GAIL: I’m really intrigued by the very faithful cover of Magazine’s “The Light Pours Out of Me,” which I know you’ve done as part of your live show for years now. What first attracted you to that song and how did you decide to finally record it properly?
AL: I’ll take this one. (Paul says ok). What attracted me to the song is that it’s a fucking god damn excellent song. And Howard Devoto’s a god damn excellent songwriter, He rules! We did that song live and a lot of people really said (adopting appropriate voice), “You guys sound good on that one.” So, I bought a bootleg (laughs) of Ministry at a store one time, because there was me, on the cover, and this bald cinder block-head fucking guy on this bootleg. I bought it, because it said my name and they said that that was Nivek Ogre from Skinny Puppy, right? (Laughs) It’s not Ogre. It’s not human, basically.
So this was a Cinder block on legs and I thought it was [Henry] Rollins at first, but whatever. So I bought this just to give Ogre shit and show him, like, “Hey! This is you!” Instead I listened to it and, yeah it sucked. Our live version of “This Light Pours Out of Me,” at the time. We’d done it good almost every night, this was probably the one night, one night out of 100...
PAUL: That was bootlegged. The crappy version.
AL: So...we got pissed off and we said, “We can do this better.” So, we did it.
GAIL: I think Al’s vocals really come close to emulating Howard Devoto’s, good job Al! It sounds just like the original version, to me.
AL: Except for it’s much punchier, according to Howard Devoto.
GAIL: It’s crunchier! You should cover, maybe, “Rhythm of Cruelty” next.
AL: Or “Song From Under The Floorboards.” I like that one too. But we’re not going to make a career out of covering Magazine songs. I didn’t know the lyrics to the song, I’d forgotten it, because we hadn’t done it in so long. We hadn’t done it live in, what, seven years or something like that? Eight years..
PAUL: Oh yeah.
AL: At least. Oh god, I’m old... So, we tried to download the lyrics and we go on the website and the only way we could find that song was...it was listed under Ministry, from that bootleg that bought! They didn’t even credit to Magazine, so that was really weird. I was another Omen. Weird. I give nothing but kudos to Howard Devoto and Barry Adamson (Magazine Bassist) and John McGeoch (guitarist), who plays with Siouxsie now, and — who was the drummer though, man? Dave Formula was the keyboard player.
PAUL: I don’t remember who the drummer was.
GAIL: I’ll look him up and give him his props (Note: Magazine’s drummer was a guy named John Doyle). Anyway, good on ya.
AL: Thank you.
PAUL: You thought that [our version of the song] sounded fairly accurate?
GAIL: Yeah, I really did. And I’m a pretty big Magazine fan, so it fooled me. The Bass intro really gives it away.
PAUL: Ahhh! Yes.
GAIL: I’d like to give myself credit for being so awesome that I knew that was a Magazine song.
AL: That is good.
PAUL: (laughing) Can you do that in your article?
GAIL: Yes, I rule!
AL: Should we vote on that?
PAUL: Yeah! We should vote on it.
AL: So anyway, “Aye!”
PAUL: Aye!
AL: You have a complete UN Counsel, unanimous decision, you do rule. Easier than Bush getting through his bullshit. But if you’ve noticed, our covers are usually fucked up.
GAIL: Yeah! Like, Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” I have to really worship you for that one. That was the best thing on Filth Pig. The first time I heard that song on the radio I thought it was just the most fucked up shit I’d ever heard. It was awesome.
PAUL: Awesome.
AL: Well, that’s good.
PAUL: But that’s odd, that song got played on the radio? (laughs)
GAIL: Yeah, I think they played in on K-Rock here.
AL: If you’ve noticed, Revolting Cocks have done “Do You Think I’m Sexy?” and “Let’s Get Physical” and we usually fuck them up, but Howard Devoto is such a Titan to us...
GAIL: He’s a God.
AL: So we decided to do it straight and true, just straight ahead, and he likes it.
GAIL: Who participated in the recording of the album and who is in the touring ensemble of Ministry now?
AL: (To Paul) You can answer the first part and I’ll answer the second part.
PAUL: What was the question?
GAIL: Were there any guest musicians on the album?
PAUL: No. Well, Al and I, primarily. We had our drummer, Max Brody out in Torneo with us for three months or something. Adam Grossman worked on one of the songs, he played guitar on “Animosity.”
GAIL: Is Adam from another band?
PAUL: He played in the band Screw. He lives in Austin, he’s a friend of ours. We had two women do back up vocals on two of the songs, Pat Kinslow and...
AL: Angelina Lucason-Jourgenson!
PAUL: I remember her. That’s the extent of the people who participated in this record.
GAIL: Because, really, what else do you need?
PAUL: No, that’s not true...well, yeah that is true. What am I saying?
GAIL: And who will be touring with you?
AL: Okay! Adam Grossman on guitar, Louis Svitek on guitar — who’s been with us for eight years — myself and Paul and, on keyboards, Pat Kinslow and Angie Lucason-Jourgenson...
GAIL: Two chick keyboard players! How Prince!
AL: Wait, it gets better. We also have a girl drummer: Tia Sprocket from Luscious Jackson is playing with us, on drums, and Max Brody. So, two drummers, two keyboard players, a bass player and three guitarists.
GAIL: It’ll be a full bore onslaught.
AL: There will be a lot of wilted mohawks up front, yes. It’s going to be quite the set.
GAIL: When are you planning on taking the show on the road?
AL: March. February in Europe. March, April, May in the States and then back to Europe for June and July, then back to the States for August and September, then to Australia for October. I mean, it’s weird knowing what you’re going to be doing, like, nine months from now.
PAUL: A year’s worth of touring.
GAIL: Is the any part of the movie “This is Spinal Tap” that reminds you of something that happened in Ministry?
PAUL: (Laughs hard) Like, ninety percent of it.
AL: Our drummers blow up.
PAUL: We’ve gotten lost underneath an arena, we’ve played on army bases...
AL: We started a riot on an army base, Pearl Harbor! We were on the 10 O’Clock news. There was a riot at Peal Harbor because we were three hours late to get on stage. But we weren’t late, they just wouldn’t pay us. It wasn’t anything, like, from abuse or anything...
PAUL: We were there, ready to play but we wouldn’t play until we got paid, you see.
AL: The guy wouldn’t pay us. He was very shifty kind of guy. The problem was, our sound man played Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” for three hours straight, over and over, before we went on, which kind of got the Samoans riled. When we came on there was quite a lot of fireworks thrown at us.
GAIL: They were Angry Samoans, ha ha ha.
AL: Yeah, right exactly. There was a lot of fireworks thrown at us. It was, like, my glorious moment in dodging projectiles. I think [for] that show was more dodging going on, I mean, I was light on my feet that night. They were throwing M 80’s and shit at us. Then the Navy decided to shut us down because we were so late coming on that they only wanted us to play for 40 minutes. Our tour manager kind of bamboozled them and said, “Oh, I don’t know how to turn it off,” that kind of shit. He went on as long as he could before they finally pulled the plug, in between our last song and the first encore. First, the lights went out for the last two songs. We were playing in the dark, we just kept playing, fuck it.
GAIL: That’s awesome.
PAUL: And there were noise complaints from, like, a mile away or something (laughs).
AL: Yeah, a mile away, we were at 127 db, which...a 747 taking off is at 123 db. So, yeah, they were kind of pissed off. Then, when they finally shut us off, the Samoans — we’d won them over by then! — they’d stopped throwing M80’s at us and started throwing them at each other, which is much preferable, I think...for us anyways. (Laughs) It was more fun per burn. So, we didn’t come back on and they started rioting. We actually came back on, but it was like Ministry Unplugged...only not as good at MTV because it was just guitars, unplugged. So, the crowd got mad and started storming the jeeps and HUMV’s and started turning them over and throwing all the fucking fireworks right and left. Oh it was awesome, yeah! We were whisked away in a car, back to the hotel just in time to see it on the 10 O’Clock news. There was smoke pouring out of the area of Pearl Harbor, where we’d played. We don’t play many Navy bases anymore, for some reason.
PAUL: That’s fairly similar to Spinal Tap. Right?
AL: We wound up getting ripped off, but we played for the kids! (Shouts) It was for the kids!
GAIL: How did Ministry get the part in A.I.? You guys were definitely the best thing in the movie.
AL: Oh yeah, that movie sucked. Here we go, Okay, I’m into the snappy repartee now. Stanley Kubrick liked us. I don’t know why. I liked him up until Eyes Wide Shut. But he liked us and before he died, he wanted to make sure we were the band in there. That’s cool, isn’t it?
GAIL: I can’t think of anything cooler, he directed my favorite movie of all time, “A Clockwork Orange.”
AL: A Clockwork Orange ...what about Dr. Strangelove? That’s my favorite. And Lolita’s pretty good too.
PAUL: A Clockwork Orange is pretty awesome.
AL: Anyway, he wanted us on there, so we got dumped in Spielberg’s lap, which leads us to another anecdote, another story. You want to hear a story?
GAIL: I sure do, and I also want to find out what the Steven Spielberg experience was like.
AL: Well, that’s the story, see? This is a great segue, you’re just rolling, right now.
GAIL: We’re in the groove.
AL: We’re in sync. We’re like a fucking 808 box. We met Spielberg and he was kind of like, he didn’t know what to make of us for a couple of days. Him and his handlers kind of stayed away. Finally it came time for the introduction, OK? I got a little bit of the devil in me, or something in me, and decided to tell him, after the basic, “Steven Spielberg, this is Al Jourgenson. Hi how, ya doin’?” I was like, “Look Mr. Spielberg, we can’t do this movie. We were under the impression that this AI was a porno movie and it’s short for “Anal Intruder” and...we can’t do this.” He didn’t get the joke at first. He went running off with his handlers like, pretty fast, with me chasing after him going “Joke! Joke! Just a joke...” We got along better after that, so, that was good. But everyday there was a new [thing that] AI [stood for], like, “Anal Incest” or “Animal Indecency.” AI became many things to us.
PAUL: We actually had body doubles, or stunt doubles, for the film, for really long shots or in case we didn’t want to be on stage during explosions. In other words, when they had long shots — where there was a shot, say, from here to the other side of the street — they would tell us, “If you guys don’t want to be on stage, we can use your doubles because you’re just going to be in the farthest distance.”
AL: But we live for entertainment, man, so we were there. We were there for all the explosions and shit too, which was kind of unsettling.
GAIL: How many days did it actually take you to film that scene?
AL: Two weeks.
PAUL: 12 days. (Laughs)
GAIL: Well if they had 12 days of footage why didn’t they at least put the whole song in the movie?
PAUL: Well, since we didn’t have shit to do with the final movie, believe me, we were just thrilled that we got to go out there. It was really awesome. We stayed on the Queen Mary! That scene was shot in the Spruce Goose hangar right next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach. It was super cool!
GAIL: Did you write “What About Us” specifically for the movie?
AL: Just, exclusive, it was exclusive for the movie, right Paul? That was our crowning (makes gagging sound) moment (makes gagging sound again) musically.
GAIL: It is a great song.
AL: No it’s not, get over it. You were on a roll until just now. Let’s call a spade a spade. Does fur ball ring a bell?
GAIL: Well, it was the best thing in the movie, which, in many ways, was just so horrible.
AL: I’ve completely destroyed my teddy bear since then. And not only that, it [Al refers to the Teddy Bear Super Toy from the movie] was a constant pain in the ass on the set. “The bear is down! The bear is down!”
GAIL: Did you meet any of the actors in the film?
AL: Oh yeah, they were great. What’s his name!? Donny Joel Osmond [Al refers to child actor, Haley Joel Osment], he was a fan. And Jude Law, he was not a fan, but he’s a fan, because we threatened to...
PAUL: We threatened to kick his ass and take his tickets to go see Radiohead. They played like two shows in the United States, and LA was one of them. He had tickets to the show.
AL: He was cool...
PAUL: He was totally cool.
AL: He wouldn’t hang with us, which I think made him cool.
GAIL: He’s a good actor, I think.
AL: He acted his was out of hanging with us a couple of nights. (Both Al and Paul laugh). Ba-dum-bum! I tell you, we’re on a roll! Let’s keep it going.
GAIL: When you were sitting through the film, what did you think of the finished product?
PAUL: What is the question? (I repeat the question in a variety of different ways). What I liked about the movie? What did I like about the movie? Ahhhhh...I liked the aspect that (laughs) I didn’t get any fuckin’ free popcorn, fuck you...
(Note: At this point, I notice Al is on his knees on the carpet in front of me)
GAIL: Why are you on your knees Al?
PAUL: (Laughs uncontrollably) Mammy! He’s going into his Al Jolson routine right about now!
GAIL: No one has ever gotten on their knees in front of me during an interview before. Anyway, you liked the aspect of what? What was happening?
PAUL: Fuck. The concept that the consciousness of mankind was embodied by these cheeseball...
AL: Oh, shut up!
PAUL: You shut up! She asked me what I liked about the movie!
GAIL: Embodied by cheeseball what?
PAUL: Well, robots. At the end of the movie, the fucking 2 million years later, or whatever...
AL: The climate changes were great! Like, with the sky going by real fast! And lots of years going by...kind of like our career!
PAUL: No...the last 20 minutes of the movie, I thought, was the most interesting part of the movie. That fact that there was pseudo-sentient robots commiserating with this one...what do you call it?...um...
AL: I’ll be back. (Al exits)
PAUL: Okay, goodbye. What do they call those things? Prototype robot, in that it had actually lived during the time of humans. I thought that was fairly interesting. Do you see what I’m saying?
GAIL: Yeah, I liked the dark aspects of the film. Little parts were great, but then it got too Spielberg/Disney.
PAUL: Well, sure it was horrifying to me as well. But then, after the fact, I remember I was reading about it and, in fact, Kubrick wanted to hire Spielberg to do that movie, specifically. He had asked him to do it because he wanted it to be a huge production, something that, I guess, Kubrick felt that he couldn’t do [himself]. So, I mean, it seems odd that, yes, you and I agree that there was too much cutesy bullshit in the movie, however, that’s what Kubrick wanted. It seems...ridiculous, because who are we to doubt what Kubrick wanted?
GAIL: And that’s his legacy, or swan song, isn’t it? Isn’t that the last thing he did? Or was it Eyes Wide Shut? (At this point, Al returns from his trip to the bathroom with an interesting story and this conversation went elsewhere until I was able to reign it back in.) Did the appearance in “AI” help revive interest in the band, because wasn’t that about the same time that you guys got dropped from Warner Bros?
AL: Absolutely none. It must have been our Academy Award winning performance.
GAIL: Were you supposed to be a cyborg robot also?
AL: Yes, some kind of a genre like that, yeah, with the King Diamond fucking make up on, underneath. That was an hour and a half every morning, at 5:30 in the morning, getting King Diamond put on me, which was not really fun. I told them I wanted a Lemmy look, and then they came up with this huge talking mole, but I nixed that.
GAIL: Also, in the video for “What About Us,” you played a pretty cool guitar that had a TV screen on the body showing an image of your face. Was that just an illusion done in post production or was that a real guitar?
AL: That was the way the guitar was. You know that harmonica thing I had on? Which was also a post-apocalyptic type look...
PAUL: Hahaha!
AL: Fur ball. Okay, that had a little fiber-optic camera in the harmonica, which ran down into the guitar, which had an LED screen in the middle of the guitar, so the camera was on me — “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Demil,” you know, Sunset Blvd. — and then just went right to the guitar. In case they didn’t have LED screens up top, which they did, people could focus on me. Because it’s all about me.
GAIL: Did you get to keep that guitar?
AL: I tried to steal it, but I couldn’t even get the mask. It all goes to a Steven Spielberg Museum, believe it or not.
GAIL: That’s pretty gay. (Paul and Al laugh hysterically).
PAUL: I can’t even think, this music is so fucking loud.
GAIL: A couple of days ago, I was going back into my collection and playing a bunch of Ministry records, just to immerse myself in the whole Ministry vibe...
PAUL: I think that was two fur balls, that one right there.
AL: Two and half fur balls.
GAIL: What does that mean?
(Paul and Al stick their fingers in their mouths and make fake gagging motions).
GAIL: Anyway, I was looking at the cover of Filth Pig the other day and it struck me how that’s a pretty timely image, the guy standing there with the flag and wearing the button that says “Don’t Blame Me.” Some pretty scary shit is going down in this country right now and I wondered if you guys are at all frightened by or concerned with the increasingly conservative yet war-mongering political environment? And will that affect your music at all?
PAUL: It will affect our music, because we’re leaving the country. You have to. I mean, you have to be an ex-patriot. This is absolutely disgusting. These fucking Right Wing Assholes...
AL: We’re moving to Sun City.
PAUL: Exactly.
AL: Joke joke.
GAIL: Fur ball
AL: Thank you!
PAUL: They’re so self-serving and so hypocritical. It’s like, now that they have control of every branch of the fuckin’ government...
GAIL: Another reason to be angry, right Al?
AL: Yeah, of course.
PAUL: The point is, once again, it so hypocritical, now (sighs heavily) they’re all gloating and saying, “Now we have the responsibility of the American people to do the right thing...” You know (laughs), it’s like, give me a fucking break! You just want to summarily shoot them, that’s all there is to it.
GAIL: It’s like the song says, “Save me from the people who would save me from myself.” Do you know what that’s from?
AL: Jello Biafra?
GAIL: Gang of Four. Oh, speaking of Jello, are you guys still doing stuff with him, is there still a Lard project going on?
AL: Jello will not agree to ride in a horse trailer behind the tour bus. Otherwise we’d do a Lard tour. (Paul and Al laugh). We love Jello. There’s always room for Jello.
GAIL: Did either of you see the film, Bowling for Columbine?
PAUL: No, I have not.
AL: No, I have not.
PAUL: So I understand, I saw a review of it, actually. When I first heard about it, I thought for sure that it would be this completely Left Wing kind of, “Well, obviously, people who have guns, they are the problem and all guns should be registered,” and all this kind of thing. But then I came to realize that, in fact, Michael Moore is a member of the NRA, so he’s not going to completely make fun of that whole...
AL: Because there’s nothing better in the world than taking old Bryan Adams CDs and going Skeet shooting. We have to have guns, if for no other reason, to eliminate old promotional copies of very bad CDs. And I got really good at nailing these CDs in Texas, seriously. Because, in Texas, they hand out guns at the border, when you cross from Oklahoma. You are given a gun, whether you want it or not.
PAUL: And that hits on this whole thing the [DC-area] sniper, and his cohort. They were kind of like Batman and Robin, you know what I’m saying.
GAIL: Ammo Boy and Sniper Man!
PAUL: (Laughing) Sniper Man...yeah that’s right. What’s great about that is I read in the paper the other day, something about, some NRA people, fearing that there’s going to be some huge backlash because, once again, people were going to demand that all guns get registered and be licensed and all this sort of thing. And the person was going on to say, “Well, if they didn’t have weapons they could just (laughing) use bows and arrows or knives or something.” And I was thinking, no way! Those people are such chickenshits, there’s no way that those people would chose to do exactly what they did with a bow and arrow or go up with knives (laughs heartily until he is gasping for air.)
GAIL: Wasn’t the whole thing behind being a sniper, perhaps, the element of surprise, and maybe not getting caught?
PAUL: Ya think? I mean, come on!
GAIL: If you run up and attack someone with a knife, I mean, maybe there might be a witness.
PAUL: Ya think so?
AL: Unless you were a Super Hero with regular LL Bean shoes or regular Dockers. (All laugh).
GAIL: Al, What do you think of the current Chicago scene?
AL: You mean the Chicago Blackhawks? (Paul starts laughing) Because that’s what I know about it, I follow my hockey team, that’s about it. I know nothing about it...isn’t there a band called Fucked Up Pumpkin or something? I have no idea what goes on there, except for my team.
(Just then, Lenny Kravitz’ “Fly Away” comes blaring out of the sound system, prompting me to ask Al...)
GAIL: What do you think of Lenny Kravitz?
AL: I think he’s really short, man. It was really great, when I saw him the first time, I played in that band P, with Johnny Depp for awhile, right? We were there [at the Viper Room in LA] the night that what’s-his-name, the River Runs Through It kid died?
GAIL: River Phoenix.
AL: River Phoenix, thank you. We were opening for Lenny Kravitz that night and the only thing I remember is that I was on stage when that kid died.
GAIL: This is a great story!
AL: Oh my god, here we go! The real inside gossip. But, before the show I got thrown out of the dressing room because I was kind of inebriated, at sound check, ‘cause I decided I wanted to play pedal steel that night, in the band, instead of guitar and there was no part for pedal steel, but I said, “I’ll make one!” So, I see Lenny Kravitz in the dressing room and the “secret room” at the Viper Room — you know, the one with the one-way glass - and he was 5’1” when I met him and then he’s my height, like, an hour later. I started stomping on his boot and he had steel toed platforms, that fucker. I couldn’t get to his toes, but anyway, he grew nine inches — NINE INCH platforms. I mean, this is like Sylvester Stallone times four or five, something like that. Then I got escorted out by his posse, and they used my head as a battering ram on the door. So, that’s what I think about Lenny Kravitz. He’s very short. Other than that, I have no comment. (Al makes gagging sound.)
GAIL: Fur ball.
AL: Fur ball.
PAUL: An infinite fur ball on that guy.
GAIL: So, if you’re not into the Chicago scene anymore what’s your stock in Chicago Trax these days? Or does R. Kelly own the studio now?
PAUL: No, no, no, R. Kelly doesn’t own it, no. He did have some interest in the studio, but I don’t think [he does] anymore. But we’re still partners in that studio, yeah.
GAIL: And I guess you didn’t want to record there because there would have been too many distractions?
AL: In a BIG way.
PAUL: That’s a good guess.
AL: Ad nauseam infinitum.
GAIL: How did you meet your wife?
AL: Fourteen years ago in Toronto, at a Ministry show. That’s it. I saw her and I said, believe it or not, my first words to her were “Here’s my room key.” Because she’s gorgeous and she’s great and she keeps me on the straight and narrow.
GAIL: The love of a good woman can be a powerful thing.
AL: Who said that? Jello Biafra?
GAIL: I think I heard it in a song.
PAUL: It was in a Spielberg movie, I’m sure of it! Yeah! That was the moral of the story.
GAIL: If it’s cool to ask you this, what was your impetus for cleaning up?
AL: I found a new drug, and the drug is senility. When you get to my age it’s the ultimate freedom. I can go out in my Depends at 6 in the morning and walk down the rain soaked street and say hello to my neighbors wearing nothing but that and combat boots, and it’s chalked up to senility. And you can’t do that with drugs. Senility is much cooler...and it’s legal. It’s a legal high.
GAIL: How long have you been senile now?
AL: Four months. Four months with nothing. Life’s a bowl of cherries now, not a bowl of pits. It’s good.
GAIL: You look healthier.
AL: Thank you, I’ve been working out, too, because this set means everything to us. This upcoming tour, man, it’s like, I hate to say this because it’s so cliche, but I really feel sorry for the band that follows us, if there is such a thing. I’ll tell you this, the guy that did the AI sets for the Flesh Fair thing? He’s doing our sets for Ministry, plus eight people and we’re doing a two hour set, too.
GAIL: Al, do you still have an interest in car racing and monster trucks and stuff like that?
AL: (Laughs) I have an interest in avoiding speeding tickets these days. It’s in my best interest. Other than that, yeah, I have an interest, but as a spectator. I was so fed up, I was going to quit [the band] for awhile and just go to Skip Barber Formula One school and do that routine for awhile. But things didn’t work out, because the law and me are like oil and water. [Note: Al is wearing a black t-shirt with the word “Police” emblazoned across the chest.]
(Epilogue: After this interview came to a close, Al and Paul and I were in such a love-fest that Al invited me out to dinner with them and their tightly knit entourage. We all had a great time, but that’s another story).